English Short Title Catalogue is BACK!
After the British Library Cyberattack
The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) is a union short-title catalogue of works published between 1473 and 1800, in Britain and its former colonies, notably those in North America, and primarily in English, drawing on the collections of the British Library and other libraries in Britain and around the world.
In October 2023, the database went offline, along with the broader digital infrastructure of the British Library because of the British Library cyberattack.1
In May 2025, a complete version of the English Short Title Catalogue was relaunched in beta by the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL)
English Short Title Catalogue
The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) is the most comprehensive resource available for the output of the printing press in the English-speaking world before 1801.2
ESTC is a bibliography that aims to record every distinct letterpress item produced during the hand-press era in these regions. It is also a union catalogue that lists copies of those items held by libraries and other owners around the world as well as links to digital reproductions where available.
Begun in the late 1970s and with its roots in Pollard and Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland3 and of English Books Printed Abroad 1475-1640 (STC)4, ESTC currently contains about 500,000 records and more than 3 million holdings. It is co-managed by the British Library and ESTC North America (ESTC/NA).5
SEARCH HERE: English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC)
Consortium of European Research Libraries
The Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL)6: purpose is to share resources and expertise between research libraries with a view to improving access to, as well as exploitation and preservation of, the European printed heritage.
The Consortium was formed in 1992 on the initiative of research libraries in many European countries and legally came into being in June 1994. CERL seeks to share resources and expertise between research libraries with a view to improving access to, as well as exploitation and preservation of the European printed heritage in the hand-press period (up to c. 1850).
The British Library and ESTC North America are excited to be able to add the English Short Title Catalogue to CERL’s collection of bibliographical resources which includes, among others:
Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) and the
Knight, Sam (19 December 2023). "The Disturbing Impact of the Cyberattack at the British Library". The New Yorker.
Snyder, Henry L. “The English Short Title Catalogue.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 82, no. 3 (1988): 333–36.
Wing, Donald Goddard, Carolyn Nelson, and Alfred W. Pollard. 1998. Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America, and of English Books Printed in Other Countries, 1641-1700. Edited by John J. Morrison. Second edition, revised and enlarged. New York: Modern Language Association of America.